Retrying the connection to the phone

Two ways.
1. (I'm going from memory, so this won't be totally correct, but it should be close enough to get you there.) Tap the gear icon, tap personal devices, select your phone, tap connect to device.
2. Press and hold the radio power button for 3-5 seconds. This will reboot the head unit and it should then automatically connect to your phone.

 

The reconnect option almost never works for me. I just do the reset by default now.

 

I find the AppleCarPlay very temperamental on this car, more than my other cars.
It'll drop then re-connect or won't connect at all.

I've done the reboot a few times. Works for a while then back to the same past behavior.

 

There seems to be no rhyme or reason for when it decides to auto-connect to my iphone and when it doesn't. I have to manually connect through gear icon-> Bluetooth -> my phone -> Connect about half the time I get into the car. Sometimes I have to hit connect 2-3 times, sometimes it works on the first try. Roughly four times in the last year I've had to shut down the car or power cycle the radio to get it working. Doesn't matter if the last driver was me or my spouse or whether or not the app wanted (and given) permission to connect to the phone thru the pop-up. Different times of day, different locations, different weather, etc etc. It behaves like this for a few days, then is works fine for a few, then acts up for days. I am the primary driver and listed first in the list of devices, though I don't think that matters. My spouse has the same issue.

My bluetooth is always on because I have a medical device connected to it, so it's not like the BT is in sleep mode or anything.

This isn't really your issue since your phone was too far away when the car was started - sorry for hijacking it to whine! But it's the only forum thread that I'm aware of that brings up this issue.